Donald Trump was not my first choice, and I didn’t vote for him in the Republican primary. Nonetheless, he won my state of Georgia.

Like many others, when he first announced his candidacy, I thought it a joke. In fact, I said to a number of people that he was just doing it for press attention, and would soon drop out. Again, like many others, I was wrong.

After he got the nomination, I began to admire his frankness, and ability to inspire crowds. I’ve long admired his business acumen. But, it seemed that every time I moved toward him, he would say something that pushed me back. I’m talking about things like making fun of Carly Fiorina’s appearance, viciously attacking Ted Cruz’s wife, and other examples. These weren’t things a biased press said, they weren’t things he said decades ago, these were things that I heard him say.

Perhaps the worst thing I ever heard him say was during a radio interview discussing his faith. He was asked about repentance. He said, in effect, that he couldn’t think of anything he’d done that required repentance.

As a Christian, I find that attitude almost unfathomable. What kind of person thinks he never does wrong?

After he secured the nomination, I adopted an “I’ll hold my nose and vote” attitude.

I was actually surprised Hillary Clinton got the Democrat Party nomination. I didn’t think Bernie Sanders would get it because socialism just will not stand up to scrutiny by anyone. But, Clinton is such an obviously flawed standard bearer, that I thought the Democrats would run Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, or someone more palatable.

The Wikileaks emails have since shown that the fix was in for Clinton from the beginning, and that the primaries were really a coronation.

I’ve been convinced the Clintons were criminals for years. The Whitewater deal, the White House Travel Office deal, Vince Foster, the Mark Rich pardon, and most recently the Clinton Foundation just to name a few. But, even I was shocked at the depth of corruption revealed by Wikileaks regarding the Foundation. This is banana republic stuff, and a less powerful person would be in prison for it.

On top of that, from what has been leaked from her staff, and security personnel, she’s disdaining and humiliating of underlings, untruthful, arrogant, and mean spirited. Trump, often accused understandably of being arrogant, is however spoken highly of by his underlings.

So again, here I am facing an election choice. Some would say that the answer is to vote 3rd party, but the reality is, the choice is a binary one. Either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be our next president. A vote for a third party, if the pollsters are correct, is in effect a net vote for Hillary. It’s the same for not voting at all.

So, here I was prepared to do a “nose hold” vote for Trump. But, that’s changed.

I’m a small business owner, and while not especially active in politics, have given a fair amount of money to political candidates, Pacs, and causes. I became so annoyed at Republicans, at all levels, that I stopped doing anything more than an occasional small donation.

It’s frustrating to help elect someone promising to “fix” this or that, and then to be told after they’re elected that “fix” is impossible. Obamacare is an example. We elected a Republican majority in both houses, only to watch them agree to fund Obamacare long term. The same with doing something about the open borders; Republicans talked a good game, but in the end, did nothing. Trump is often accused of somehow destroying the Republican party, but from my perspective, he is the result of established Republicans lying to their constituents. It’s really no different for many democrats who have been told their party is for the “little guy” only to discover that their party leaders are in bed with big business. Many of them voiced the same frustration, hence the rise of the outsider Bernie Sanders.

For that reason, I was not enthusiastic about nominating another establishment presidential nominee. I supported Ben Carson for the nomination. He was intelligent, moral, and an outsider. My wife and I have been fans of Dr. Carson for years, long before he ever considered politics.

But, for a variety of reasons, Trump won the nomination. Carson has enthusiastically endorsed and supported Trump, and will, I hope have a place in a Trump administration.

The late Phyllis Schlafly’s endorsement of Trump was one of the best I read. She makes the case that the Washington elite cadre (of both parties) has grown so powerful and corrupt, that only a talented and fearless executive like Trump can overturn it. She referred to them as the “kingmakers.” There are few people I admired more than Ms. Schlafly.

“Trump is the only hope to defeat the Kingmakers,” Schlafly told Breitbart resolutely. “Because everybody else will fall in line. The Kingmakers have so much money behind them.”

I’ve come to agree. Trump is an imperfect messenger, in some ways, a horribly imperfect one. But, he is the only person in political life at the moment who can, in fact, change anything.

He’s not the first imperfect man of the hour. Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind. He was selected by the power brokers as Vice President, so that he wouldn’t run for NY governor. They thought it a good place to park this popular man they considered crazy. Of course, then Mckinley was assassinated, and Teddy became a great and beloved president.

In the Old Testament the prophet Samson was an arrogant brawler and consorter with prostitutes, who nonetheless rose to greatness.

Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Adams, and others of the founding fathers were very imperfect men that accomplished great and enduring things. We idolize Lincoln today, but at the time, he was considered by many in the established political class as a joke.

I’ve come to believe that Donald Trump is the man of the hour. His strengths, vision, and ability to lead are nowhere else to be found in the present political landscape. This isn’t to discount his faults. Trump claims to have renewed his faith in Jesus Christ. That report is from James Dobson. If that’s true, and I have no reason to doubt Dobson, then we still can’t expect perfection. We can expect stumbles along the way.

I also think that we can see real progress in a federal government that has become an incestous cess pool of special interests and self preservation at the expense of the citizenry. He has also pledged to appoint conservatives to the courts, even supplying a list of possible supreme court nominees. That alone is reason enough to vote Trump.

And finally,

Democrat Evan Bayh said in an interview with the late Chuck Colson that none of us should expect politics to “save us.” We will always be disappointed if we do. He further said that politics in general is downstream of the culture. Meaning that a corrupt culture will produce corrupt politics. I think he’s correct.

Alexis de Tocqueville said many years ago that in a democracy, people get the government they deserve. I think Bayh’s contention is really just a paraphrase of de Tocqueville.

If we as Americans elect the Clintons to high office, knowing for certain now given Wikileaks of their corruption, then we deserve to live in a corrupt nation.

Anyone that thinks they have nothing to learn about customer service, and is in a leadership position of any sort, in any organization- is foolish.

No organization holds a technical or market advantage very long, and the defining factor for growth is often customer service.

For small businesses and organizations especially, this can be the great leveler when competing with a large company. This program starts out by asking “what kind of a customer are you?” Using that as a springboard, Eddie then uses both personal anecdotes and professional standards and research to discuss and examine the “how to’s” of good customer service.

“I’ve come to see institutional decline like a staged disease. Harder to detect but easier to cure in the early stages. Easier to detect, but harder to cure in the later.”Jim Collins

When I first founded EMA, I would panic if we had a bad month. The panic wasn’t completely unfounded, I had limited resources and wouldn’t have survived too many bad ones. Conversely, I would be almost giddy when we had a good month. What I learned over time, was to control my emotions a bit, and keep a more even keel.

Almost every organization, even very healthy ones, experience downturns. On the other hand, very unhealthy ones can have a temporary upturn. The wisdom is knowing the difference between a blip and trend.

Author and business researcher Jim Collins wrote “How the Mighty Fall” in which he chronicled stages of business decline.

Collins suggests there are five stages to decline:

Hubris born of success

Undisciplined pursuit of more

Denial of risk and peril

Grasping for salvation

Capitulation to irrelevance or death

Honestly, the one that frightens me the most is number one, hubris (or arrogance) born of success. “I/We are great because we do/know certain things,” as opposed to understanding WHY these things we do or know work for us.

I see this all the time in others, and to be honest, have seen it in myself. All of us like to think highly of ourselves, and if we’ve experienced career or business success, it confirms our opinion.

It’s a recipe for disaster. Arrogant people don’t learn, and the moment you stop paying attention to what’s going on in your organization, the market, and within yourself- you’ve taken the first step to failure.

I don’t accept president Obama’s “you didn’t build that” statement. But, neither is it true that any of us achieve success entirely on our own.

I was fortunate early in my career to work for two incredible entrepreneurs that taught me not only the technicals of the electronic motor drive business, but allowed me to take a leadership role in a growing company. They also put up with a lot of mistakes, and I’m forever grateful to them.

Denial of risk and peril goes along with hubris. “We’re a great company; our customers love us; our competition is inferior to us.” Often said, without a shred of objective data to back that opinion up.

A number of years ago we landed a big job, in fact at that time, the biggest job we’d ever gotten. It took a lot of our resources, but it was very profitable. When that project ended about a year later, I began to have some nagging unease about our company. We seemed to have lost our edge, but everyone was telling me different.

I hired an outside consultant to help, and an indepth and unemotional analysis confirmed my suspicions. We were losing ground in every area. The large project had distracted me and allowed a number of unresolved issues to fester. We were in denial. Fortunately, we got out of it.

When you find yourself blaming external forces for your problems, you’re in trouble. It’s empowering to take personal responsibility, and its the first step to resolution. IF I am the problem, then I am the solution.

Many companies that find themselves in decline start grabbing at straws. Hire a superstar, go after another market, begin supplying more products and services, can all be desperate attempts. And, the research indicates they rarely work.

Here’s some hints on avoiding decline:

First of all, stay humble and pay attention to your business. Never assume you deserve success; it has to be constantly earned. You MUST provide excellent services and products, and you must be friendly and accessible.

Be sure you have the right people in the right seats in your company. This is a primary leadership responsibility. Building a success culture, and instilling it in your people is your job.

Rather than trying new things, the path out of a decline is often returning to good leadership and business practices. There’s a great story of a fast food company CEO who was hired to pull the company out of a terrible decline. Prior to beginning his job he visited many of their stores.

At his first meeting, people were telling him the reasons for decline, ranging from changing consumer tastes to increased competition. He interrupted them and said, “the problem with this company is dirty bathrooms and surly employees, and we are going to fix that starting right now.” The company did indeed turn around. Never ignore the basics of your business; it’s easy to stray from them.

In a decline.. here are a few steps to consider:

Put all emotion aside and deal with the scary truth. This may mean getting some outside help. Don’t underestimate your own hubris.

On Sunday evening, at 6 PM, choirs from Mountain Park and Snellville First Baptist will combine to lead a nostalgic service of traditional music at Mountain Park First Baptist Church in Stone Mountain.

Admission is free. This will be a wonderful evening of music featuring both choir and audience singing of historical hymns. Doors will open at 5:30.

Mountain Park FBC is located at 5485 Five Forks Trickum Road in Stone Mountain, GA. This is near the intersection of Five Forks and Rockbridge Road.

The word “hymn” comes from the Greek word hymnos, which means songs of praise. Per the New Testament Jesus and his disciples sang hymns together. For a number of years, hymns primarily were the Psalms and other scriptures set to music, but Martin Luther changed that with his classic “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” He used scriptural principles, but not the literal scripture verses. Although we hold this hymn in high regard today, at the time it was controversial.

Issac Watts created additional controversy with his hymns, but was successful in convincing churches in England to expand their music to include (at that time) modern hymns. In the America’s, Charles Wesley played a big role in setting the tone of American hymns.

Church hymns do tend to reflect the times. Hymns written during hard times often talk of heaven and rest. There are hymns that are celebratory in nature, hymns that are evangelical, hymns that explain doctrines, and hymns that are prayers.

It’s a marvelous art form, and the impact of hymns and music on the Church is hard to overstate.

Come and join us on November 6th, and enjoy a nostalgic time of worship and praise.

Everyone runs into negative people at times. You know, the guys who always see the glass half empty. The people who seem to suck all the energy out of a room when they enter.

The problem is negative people can sometimes be your more intelligent employees. And, you do in fact need their input. So how do you keep a workplace positive, and still remain realistic?

First of all, let’s talk about negativism for a moment. According to research, a baby will usually spot a frowning face in a crowd of smiling faces, and will focus on the frowning face. I’m not sure we ever grow out of that.

In the Old Testament book of Numbers we find the story of Moses sending 12 spies into the promised land. The Israelites had been wandering through a barren land, and now they were getting ready to enter the lush valley of the Jordan. A land promised to them by God.

The 12 spies returned with glowing tales of the fertility of the land, but they also reported that the inhabitants were big and fierce. They had fortified cities and frankly, they terrified the spies.

All, that is except two, Joshua and Caleb, who acknowledged the size of the challenge, but said with God’s help, they could take it.

The response of the others is instructive. The more they talked about the downside, the more negative they became. They began to make irrational statements, even saying at one point that they would be better off dead.

The negative ones became hostile to Joshua and Caleb, even threatening to stone them. And finally, they descended into complete rebellion, and attempted to replace Moses and return to Egypt.

So, here’s what we learn:

Negativism is contagious

Negativism leads to irrational thought

Negativism leads to hostility

Negativism leads to rebellion

Peter Bregman, writing in the Harvard Business Review gave some advice for dealing with negativity. Here it is:

Don’t counter their negativity with your positivity

That seems counter intuitive, but it appears to the other person as argumentative. People don’t like to be emotionally contradicted, and trying to convince them NOT to feel something, tends to make them feel it more stubbornly.

Don’t counter their negativity with your negativity

Your negativity, if you try this, will only add fuel to the fire. Avoid doing it.

Understand how they feel and validate it.

This is hard, but you are not agreeing with them, you’re simply showing that you understand how they feel. Inc Magazine offered some good advice in this area. “Inquire first, and advocate second.” In other words, seek to understand why they feel the way they do.

Find a place to agree with them.

You do not have to fake it, and you don’t have to agree with everything they’re saying, but if you can, agree with some of it. You can express, for instance, that you too have frustrations over the way some things are done.

Find out what they’re positive about, and reinforce it.

You are not trying to convince them to be positive, you’re simply giving attention whatever they are positive about. Almost no one is negative about everything. If they are in fact, completely negative, then make sure they see you supporting others who are positive.

This offers them concrete hope, because it’s based on the positive feelings they already have, rather than on feelings you think they should have.

Negativity DOES have to be dealt with, because it costs money. Gallop says that negative and disengaged employees cost American businesses around $350 billion per year.

Healthy conflict, goes back to the earlier suggestion, inquire first, and advocate second. There can be opposing views, but as long as both sides are actively engaged in doing what’s in the organization’s best interest, the results can be positive.

This works in all organizations, including volunteer ones, but I think that profits can be a strong motivator for a business leader reticent to try this. Negativity costs money; there’s no escaping that fact. So deal with it.

Hire positive people

That sounds almost trite doesn’t it? But consider this: do you want a positive environment in your company? Then don’t hire negative people to start with.

This doesn’t mean hiring yes men. A healthy organization needs men and women that will express themselves. But, you want people that overall, have a positive outlook on life; people that primarily look for solutions, not problems.

Be completely transparent

When people aren’t given the whole story, they tend to make up the rest, and it’s usually more negative than the truth. This as much as anything can lead to negativity and disengagement.

Encourage innovation

This is all about letting go, and allowing people to use their creative talents. You can counter negativity by giving people the tools to change the things that bother them the most.

Allow fun

I am convinced that fun is greatly underrated in most organizations. Think of ways to make your work environment fun, even crazy at times.

Prune bad apples

Unfortunately, there comes a time, when a consistently negative employee has to be cut loose. These are the grenade throwers, who don’t provide solutions, but simply exacerbate problems. Give them a chance to change; help them. But, if that fails let them go.

The New Testament book of James says “Count it all joy when you encounter various trials.” It goes on to say that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

I’ll confess that I’m not always joyful in the midst of trials and tribulations, whether business or personal, but I have learned the value of them.

The picture is my son Trey and me after hiking out the Bright Angel trail from the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. A joyful, although for me, trying hike. But well worth the reward once accomplished.

Einstein flunked out of school, failed his college entrance exam, and was told he lacked the mental abilities to be a physicist. Thomas Edison was considered “slow” by his teachers, and failed thousands of times before coming up with the electric light bulb.

Harlan Sanders, of KFC fame, had a failed restaurant and was rejected over one thousand times when trying to get a franchise going. He eventually did succeed, and built a successful restaurant chain.

The annals of business are replete with such stories, in fact, it’s more the norm than you might think. Bill Gates had a failed company that was trying to sell compiled traffic data before founding Microsoft.

The trick is to learn from your failures.

In my career, I learned much more from my failures than I ever did from success. It’s just how we’re wired.

John Maxwell wrote “Failing Forward” and he lists seven principles for learning from failure.

Reject Rejection: Do not allow your self worth to be determined by external events. Believe in yourself.

Don’t Point Fingers: Blaming others for your failures is a sure fire way to fail backwards and learn nothing from the experience. If I am the problem, then I am the solution.

See Failure as Temporary: You can either wallow in failure, or you can see it in perspective as a temporary setback.

Set Realistic Expectations: Unrealistic goals doom people to failure.

Focus on Strengths: It’s very tempting to concentrate on your weaknesses. But, it’s much better to focus and build on your strengths.

Vary your approaches to achievement: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Harlan Sanders, and a number of other successful people did not achieve great success in their first ventures. Don’t put yourself in too small a box.

Bounce Back: When dealing with failures, successful people have short memories. It’s fine to rehash and learn from failure, but it’s not fine to dwell on it. Look forward.

We all enjoy buying, but we do not want to be sold. I was recently in a music store looking at some guitar accessories. The salesperson walked over and said “may I help you?” And I said, (just like you do).. “no thanks.. just looking.”

That’s despite the fact that I went in there to buy a guitar accessory. Why did I say that? Because, just like you, I don’t like being sold anything.

In Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn after the townspeople figure out they’ve been conned by Huck and Jim’s unwanted and scoundrel raft partners, they begin yelling “sold, we’ve been sold!” That’s the same connotation we give to to being “sold” today. And no one likes it.

But, every successful business needs to “sell” their products and services, right?

Peter Bourke wrote “Unselling: Sell Less and Win More” It’s a great book that I had our people read. Peter, along with most other successful sales people and sales trainers contend that the first thing you should attempt with a prospect is NOT to sell him anything, but instead to offer him value. In short, make it about him, and not about you.

Often, even with the best of intentions, we fail at this simply because we don’t know what the prospect or customer really values. It’s very easy to assume we do; and it’s a deadly mistake.

In the early days of our business, I was very proud of my own technical prowess in our field. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I was very proficient in the electronic motor drive world, and enjoyed a national reputation as a result. And, it was unquestionably an advantage.

However, I was often distressed when a competitor I felt was technically inferior would steal a customer or land an account I was chasing. “How could that prospect give the business to them, when I’m so much better?”

Over time, I came to understand that what I valued most, was not necessarily valued by prospects. They expected a certain level of expertise, in fact, it was sort of the ticket to the game. When I repaired equipment and it worked they were happy, but they also expected it. When my competitor repaired it, and it worked, they were also happy. Arguing technical nuances was not interesting to the customer, even though it was paramount with me.

We must learn what the customer values before we can be of value. Bourke makes the very valid point that there are times when what the prospect values or wants is not in his best interest, and we can offer the value of educating him. But regardless, the starting point in that discussion is to learn what’s important to him now. Then by acting on what you learn, you can become a resource instead of salesperson.

How do you discover what’s important? Well, start by listening. Learning what a customer or prospect values is impossible with your mouth open. Customers care about their business, not about yours. The more you learn to care about their business, the better relationship you can build with them.

Jeffrey Gitomer says if you lose a job for an existing customer to a competitor, it simply means that competitor has a better relationship with that customer than you do. That’s a hard pill to swallow for many of us, but like most medicine, it does us good.

Here’s a few thoughts for you to consider:

Why do people buy from you? Don’t hurry through this, take the time to analyze.

Why do they buy from your competition?

What’s your specific market advantage? This is something very important to your customers, that you excel at.

How many more people would buy from you IF ONLY they knew you existed?

How strongly do you believe in your product or service? At our electronic motor drive company EMA Inc. we say that “No One, Anywhere, is Better at Drives than we are.” I firmly believe that, and I often ask our team member if they do. When we make mistakes, we will start by saying, “we must fix this in order to remain better at drives than anyone else.” It’s part of our culture.

This isn’t something you can just say and then leave alone, it means that every day we have to inject energy and passion into what we do, and be certain that we are in fact as good as we say.

But here’s what it does for you in sales… It gives you a belief that cannot be penetrated about the value you can bring to a prospect. We firmly believe that in our niche market, prospects get more value in doing business with us than with anyone else in our field.

And that makes selling and doing business a lot more rewarding. As Peter Bourke says.. sell less and win more.

Assuming you’re ever on a death bed (as Jerry Seinfeld quipped, “why would you ever buy one of those?”) taking stock of your life, the criteria by which you measure success will be relationships. Relationships with God, family, and friends. And, probably nothing else.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that nothing trumps relationships, and that’s true both in your personal and business life.

Here’s a few thoughts about that:

Relationships require investment.

Relationships require humility.

Relationships are one on one; Facebook is not a relationship.

Author Malcomb Gladwell in his book “Tipping Point” says that our electronically interconnected world has had the effect of renewing the desire for personal touch. Gladwell says that we are re-entering (I’m not convinced we ever left) the age of “word of mouth.”

Think of this in your own life. All of us are inundated with marketing messages every day in various forms. We’ve developed filters, almost an immunity to them. But, if someone whom we know well and trust tells us about a restaurant or a movie, we give that recommendation instant credibility. That’s the power of a relationship. It does, trump all other marketing.

Learn to be a great listener. Everyone wants to be heard and understood. We naturally bond with people that really hear us, and we want to spend time with them.

Ask the right questions. Be sure you understand them by digging deeper. One way is to say, “if I understand you correctly, you said… ” When others sense that you’re sincerely trying to understand them, then tend to open up. This deepens the relationship.

Pay attention to the whole person. We tend to remember and appreciate people who ask us if everything is OK, even if we haven’t told them anything is wrong. It tells us that they are paying attention to us.

Remember things that are important to them. People will tell us what they value, if we just listen.

Manage your emotions. People who tend to have mood swings have a hard time building deep relationships. Erratic shifts in mood tend to push people away. If this is a problem for you, work on it.

Share your story, but only when the time is right. We all know people that begin sharing intimate details of their lives before we’re ready to hear it. Pace yourself, and wait till the right time. IF you have an experience that relates to the other person’s experience, it’s usually good to share it. But, here’s a caution; don’t upstage their experience with yours.

Be genuine and fun. People enjoy being around positive people who are comfortable in their own skin.

Finally, go places and do things. Don’t give a customer a ticket to a ball game, take them to a game, and if possible, take their family.

Gitomer suggests an I-Max movie for the whole family. And do NOT bring up business there, unless they do.

Don’t have time for all this relationship building stuff? Then maybe you’d better find a mundane job where it doesn’t matter. Because in every significant job, it does.

You will not go far in your career without learning negotiating skills. Daniel Pink wrote “To Sell is Human” and in there he defines selling as moving a person from one position to another. Deepak Malhotra in his book “Negotiating the Impossible” defines negotiation as the process by which two or more parties who perceive a difference in interests or perspective attempt to reach an agreement.

He states that most of these tactics make the mistake of assuming any agreement is better than no agreement. We’ve said at EMA for years that there are worse things than failing to land a project, and that’s getting a project you shouldn’t have.

Camp makes a great point that no one should come to the negotiating table with preconditions, assumptions, or expectations for gaining agreement. The smart negotiator recognizes that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

I heard a Montgomery Ward executive speak many years ago about his experience as a young manager trainee. The store sold a wood heater to an elderly couple, the stove malfunctioned and caused damage to their home.

The senior management assumed the worst, thinking the couple wanted an exorbitant amount of money or settlement. They sent the young trainee out there, and he asked the question no one else had bothered to ask: “what would you like us to do?”

He was surprised to hear them say, that they just wanted their carpet replaced in the room with the stove. This reiterates Camp’s point.

How do you learn what you don’t know? Very simple, you ask questions.

This isn’t to say that you don’t prepare for negotiations, but your research is to help the negotiator ask the right questions, not to instill assumptions.

The best questions are open ended what, how, and why questions.

Deepak Malhotra suggests that you negotiate process before substance. Many of us have had the frustration of a long negotiation only to have the other person say, “well, I have to get my boss’ approval.’ We thought he WAS the boss. It’s imperative that you understand and negotiate the process before getting to that position.

Selling to the wrong person is a time honored sales mistake, and it should be avoided. You should clarify and reach agreement on the path to a decision.

Peter Bourke in his book “Un-Selling: Sell less and win more” suggests that you clearly understand the time factor. Many negotiators and sales people will ask “when do you plan to make a decision on this project,” and then just accept what is said. Bourke suggests asking a followup question, “what bad things will happen if you don’t make a decision by that date?”

If the answer is, in essence, “nothing,” then that’s not a real deadline.

I once heard Atlanta pastor Andy Stanley say, that “if you have the only hotdog stand in town, your hotdogs don’t have to be that good.” Most of us don’t have that option.

Business Coach Sue Miley wrote a blog recently on leveraging your points of difference. Sue rightly insists that if don’t leverage what makes your company unique, then you are the same as everyone else.

She gives 5 questions to help determine your point of difference.

Who Buys from you? Go a little deeper than women or men and determine as best you can exactly “who” buys from you.

Why does your customer buy from you?

Why do they buy from you and not from your competitor? This is where you begin to list qualities that are unique to your business and important to your customers.

Are your unique qualities sustainable? I especially like this question. In the industrial business that I’m in, some might say that we’re the only person in the SE stocking a particular part. But, what if a competitor begins stocking it? Is that still a unique quality?

Are your unique qualities real? “We offer great customer service” is not a real point of difference. What does that even mean? ” We will have an A/C technician at your house within 2 hours-” is.

The more you can target, focus, and refine your market, the more successful you will be. And by being certain that the value proposition you present contains real points of difference the easier it becomes to target.

I used to do a lot of trade shows. There was always a tension between getting numbers of people to visit your booth, and getting qualified people to visit. At these male dominated shows, you could ensure heavy booth traffic by having an attractive female on display, OR by raffling away sports tickets.

But I came to the conclusion early in my career, that smaller was bigger. We didn’t just want people tramping through the booth, we wanted people that were interested in our products and services, and had the ability to buy them.

Remember, your target customer doesn’t have to be an existing customer, in fact, they may not even be aware you exist.

But if you’ll spend the time determining what your points of difference are, what target market that appeals to , and then relentlessly focusing on it. You’ll find success.

One final thought.. these are moving targets. Especially where technology is concerned, what was a viable business a few years ago, may not be now. Know your business!